PINE GROVE - Curious about American Indians and their weapons, Collin Adams asked a local historian Saturday how arrowheads were made.
"Did they carve them out of wood?" Adams, 6, of Joliett, asked.
"No. You'll find out they're all made out of stone. If they were made out of wood, would we be able to find them today? No. They'd rot and go into the ground and you'd never find them," said the historian, Dave McSurdy, Reedsville.
He had examples of actual arrowheads, a stone axe blade, a pipe made of clay which was "several thousand years old" and more at a special presentation at Sweet Arrow Lake County Park located in Pine Grove and Washington townships.
Playfully called an "Indian Archeological Dig," McSurdy's event introduced a crowd to the study of ancient Indian artifacts by having children dig through soil in a tray as big as a sandbox. When they uncovered an object, he explained what it was.
Bob Evanchalk, parks and recreation supervisor at the park, said more than 50 people were in attendance.
"I loved the thing which looked like a fish. It was a spear head. It looked pretty cool," said Kristy Sarge, Pine Grove, who was there with her son, Chase, 5.
The event was held at the Ernest "E.J." Beltz Memorial Gazebo and Educational Kiosk at the Fish and Boat parking lot.
A parent asked McSurdy if the artifacts were found in the region.
He could not confirm the exact locations.
"A lot of people give me these things so I can use them," he said.
But he said similar items are on display at the Orwigsburg Historical Society.
In 2010, that society opened an exhibit of local American Indian artifacts, "Pennsylvania's First Americans: The Schuylkill County Story." It included hundreds of well-preserved artifacts from the personal collection of county historian and archaeologist Francis J. Burke.
McSurdy told the crowd that stone spear points are more common than arrowheads.
"The Indians have been here for 23,000 years. Out of those 23,000 years, they used spears for 21,000 years, and they only made arrow points for 2,000 years. So what do you think you'd find more of?" he asked.
"Spear points," said a bunch of children at once.
He gave them a handout, showing the types of projectile points made by the Indians from the Paleo-Indian period, extending back to 11,000 B.C., to Colonial times, about 1,700 A.D.
McSurdy also showed the children some prehistoric kitchenware, a smooth stone as big as a baseball and a larger flat stone with a hollow center. They were used to crush acorns into flour, McSurdy said.